48% of Americans hope AI cures cancer or Alzheimer's — but only 15% trust the companies building it. Is that optimism justified?
A nationwide survey by AI company Anthropic (nearly 52,000 U.S. respondents) found real hope alongside real distrust: 48% of Americans hope AI helps cure diseases like cancer or Alzheimer's, and 36% think it'll help people with disabilities. But only 15% trust the AI companies actually building this tech to make good decisions about how it's developed and used, and 64% still fear AI-driven job losses. It's a strange split — people want the outcome but don't trust who's delivering it. It comes as real progress keeps landing: this month Merck and Moderna reported a "clinically meaningful" mRNA cancer vaccine result, and AI-assisted drug discovery tools are increasingly credited with speeding up how new treatments get found. Separately, Pew Research's latest survey found scientists remain America's most trusted profession, with 77% of people trusting science overall — suggesting the distrust is aimed at tech companies specifically, not science itself.
